Welcome to the Forum on World Class IT podcast series, a collection of exclusive interviews with Chief Information Officers and other IT industry thought leaders. Learn from the experts on how best to establish a truly World Class IT organization.

In this interview, Jay Vijayan, the Vice President of IT and Business Applications of Tesla Motors, discusses World Class IT principle two, Infrastructure, and principle four, IT-Business Partnerships with Metis Strategy. Some of the topics discussed include:

Jay’s role at Tesla Motors and how Tesla operates in a fast-paced, innovative environment

IT’s collaborative relationship with development teams

How all of Tesla’s business-critical applications for core functions are home-grown

How Tesla provides comprehensive customer experience through the use of analytics, mobile applications, and more

Eye on the Trends: Cloud computing, and how it provides more flexibility and allows the organization to easily manage, maintain, and provision software to employees, particularly as the organization grows

In this interview, Stewart McCutcheon, CIO of Ecolab, Inc., discusses World Class IT principle one, People, principle three, Project and Portfolio Management, and principle four, IT-Business Partnerships, with Metis Strategy. Some of the topics discussed include:

The imperative of the IT organization’s strategy to look to become a source of competitive advantage for global organizations in the future

The various ways in which Stewart has built cross-functional capabilities to pull knowledge from the disparate functions of R&D, IT, and business, in a way that enables a greater understanding of the organization’s needs.

The important yet difficult conundrum of “build” versus “buy” in a global information technology organization, and the strategic importance of customization of systems and processes in creating competitive advantage

The challenges and opportunities Stewart identified when serving as the lead integrator of two merging companies with distinctive cultures and processes

Stewart’s unique promotion to CIO from the company acquired in a merger, and potential reasons behind the decision

Eye on the Trends: The success of high intensity, goal-oriented task forces formed to improve flawed processes, the growing trend of the CIO having core competency as a business person more so than a technologist

In this interview, Susan Swart, CIO of the International Monetary Fund, discusses World Class IT Principle One, People, Principle Four, IT and Business Partnerships, and Principle Five, External Partnerships. Some of the topics discussed include:

Organization of the IT department given the broad purview of the IMF

Sought-after skills and qualities of IT team members

Creating a new ecosystem with the engagement of new partners

Her path as an executive and advice for women in the field

Mentoring programs and the importance of increasing the pool of potential female hires

In this interview, Peter High and Stephen Gillett discuss World Class IT Principle One, People, Principle Two, Infrastructure, and Principle Four, IT and Business Partnership. Among the other topics they discuss include:

Stephen’s transition from Symantec to Google/Alphabet, including how his original role as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at GV led to his work with their moonshot factory, X

X’s process for identifying which moonshots to pursue, which include (1) addressing a huge problem, (2) employing a radical solution, and (3) using relatively feasible technology

Stephen’s ambition to work on an ambitious enterprise security project, and how that led to a cybersecurity project within X that resulted in Chronicle

A high level overview of Chronicle, which will offer an intelligence and analytics platform to help enterprises manage their own security-related data, and a malware intelligence service

The benefits of being an Alphabet company, including the ability to leverage Google’s infrastructure and machine learning expertise, their ability to attract talent, and the credibility they have with potential customers

Stephen’s diverse career and how that prepared him to be a CEO, such as honing the ability to see things from a holistic perspective, which is one of the advantages IT has over many other functions within an organization

Stephen’s perspective on digital, having been one of the first executive to carry the digital title, such as how digital can be applied to internal operations as well as to the customer experience

In this special series part 2 interview, Charlie Feld, Founder and CEO of The Feld Group, an IT leadership development firm, discusses principle one, People, and principle four, IT-Business Partnerships, of World Class IT with Metis Strategy. Some of the topics discussed include:

His book, Blind Spot IT, and his framework for IT-lead business transformation: Why, What, How, and Who?

Change management within IT and the broader scope of a business

The imperative of the CIO to proactively advocate for IT’s value contribution

Eye on the trends: The ability to create a “fabric of integration” that allows IT departments to react to an event and integrate in motion and in memory, without the contingency of ripping out and replacing legacy systems